All posts tagged teacher certification

Chimacum students integrate science with technology by using column chromatography to isolate green fluorescent protein from bacteria.

Think the special session was just about the budget? Well think again.

The week before the special session ended, House Bill 2160 was introduced and then passed. Governor Gregoire signed it into law. What does this bill do? Among other things, it requires the Professional Educator Standards Board to change the teaching certificate RENEWAL requirements for all teachers at the elementary and secondary level who are associated with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). It mandates a focus on STEM integration as a requirement for teacher certification renewal. As most elementary teachers are general ed teachers whose assignment includes subjects such as science and math, this affects a lot of teachers!

Here’s part of the text of the new law:

Sec. 3. The professional educator standards board shall revise certificate renewal rules for teachers at the elementary and secondary levels in STEM-related subjects by September 1, 2014. The revised rules shall include the requirement that continuing education or professional growth plans for these teachers include a specific focus on the integration of science, mathematics, technology, and engineering instruction.

Why would I possibly be concerned about this? I completely support the intent of this legislation.I truly believe that science education is at its best when it is integrated—with science process skills used to learn content, and the various science disciplines—physical science, life science, earth science—taught together. That is one of my main concerns with Washington’s move to a biology end-of-course exam—it promotes a single discipline, biology, to the detriment not only of other specific science disciplines but also to the detriment of integrated science study. Should this integration be included in teacher professional development? Yes, of course.

My three concerns with the new requirement renewal: (1) The fiscal note attached to this bill blithely reads, “No fiscal impact.”However, clearly, it will not be free to reeducate the entire teacher workforce impacted by this bill. By “No fiscal impact,” it means no cost to state coffers. So who will absorb this cost? Well, likely the teachers themselves. Summary of testimony at the House Education Committee hearing on this bill includes, “It is worth remembering that neither the state nor districts have resources to provide professional development opportunities for current teachers.” State math and science professional development funds which existed a few years ago no longer are around. This new requirement with no designated funds attached means the teachers will bear the costs.

(2) Teachers who now hold continuing or professional certificates have two options for renewal: 150 clock hours or National Board Certification. What might the new renewal requirements mean for these teachers? Perhaps clock hour courses which fulfill the integration requirement will be offered—again, this is a cost usually carried by teachers. Will National Board Certification or National Board Renewal, both rigorous processes, be enough to satisfy this new requirement? Or will there be another requirement and cost on top of this? The Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) will be dealing with these issues as they put together the new rules.

(3) This law also mentions the option of incorporating the integration requirement into a teacher’s Professional Growth Plan, a component of teacher evaluation. This could be a fantastic idea, with one caveat: Washington state is currently reworking the entire teacher evaluation system. Putting into law any add-ons to teacher evaluation at this point is a bit preliminary—we don’t even know what a Professional Growth Plan under the new system will look like yet!

HB 2160 also addresses new standards for the elementary endorsement and secondary math and science teacher endorsements. It reads:

Sec. 1. The revised standards shall be aligned, as appropriate, with the biology end-of-course assessment, and the 2012 student science learning standards developed from the conceptual framework for science education and next generation standards and related student performance expectations.

My concerns:

Alignment to the biology end-of-course exam.The alignment of integrated STEM teacher certification standards to a narrowly focused end-of-course exam in biology is nonsensical. The very idea of doing this highlights the main problem with having a high stakes exam in a single discipline. Not only does it focus student learning on biology, but it also, through this new law, drives professional development in this direction. The stated purpose of this law is to “revise standards and assessments for teacher certification integrating STEM knowledge and skills.” To align to the biology EOC exam seems completely contrary to the whole intent of any integrated STEM initiative.

Alignment to the Next Generation Science standards. So those Next Generation Science Standards? They only exist in an unfinished early draft form. In addition, while Washington state has been a leader in this effort, they certainly have not yet been adopted. What kind of idea is it to align teaching endorsements to standards that don’t yet even exist? This presupposes that the standards will be of high quality and will be adopted by Washington state. Both of these things are likely true, but let’s wait until we can at least see the complete standards before we start aligning teaching endorsements to them!

The somewhat sloppy wording in this bill lumps together the biology EOC, which is an assessment, with the Next Generation Science standards. Student learning standards and student assessments are very different things, and neither one here was ever designed for alignment with teacher endorsements!

The impact of this new law will all be in the interpretation by the Professional Educator Standards Board and in the subsequent implementation. Meaningful integration of science, technology, engineering, and math needs to happen in teacher professional development, and we need to be aggressive about that in Washington state. However, for this to happen, resources need to be provided, and alignment to any standards needs to happen in a reasonable way.